This book is the second of two volumes that bring together the works presented at the congress "Contributions of Psychology to COVID-19", organized by the Interamerican Society of Psychology in 2020. This was one of the first virtual international meetings on psychology and COVID-19 in the world and brought together researchers and professionals from South, Central and North America in a single online event. The content of both volumes includes many of the first issues addressed by researchers, scholars, and practitioners across the Americas at the start of the pandemic – before vaccines, before knowledge of treatment and impact, before our worlds and daily lives were forever changed. Chapters in the first volume focus on the impacts of the pandemic in mental health, social and family dynamics, educational processes and the work of health professionals. Chapters in the second volume are dedicated to studies addressing the impacts of the pandemic in vulnerable populations; proposals of psychological interventions to deal with the distress caused by COVID-19; strategies of coping, resilience and adaptation; and the development of psychological instruments of measurement and assessments during the pandemic. The content of these two volumes marks a baseline for the collective work initiated by psychologists who came together to answer the call to combat the pandemic across the Americas. In that sense, both volumes are truly a “snapshot in time” that could help us assess in the future how much progress we have made to apply psychology to the pressing demands of our time.

This book is the first of two volumes that bring together the works presented at the congress "Contributions of Psychology to COVID-19", organized by the Interamerican Society of Psychology in 2020. This was one of the first virtual international meetings on psychology and COVID-19 in the world and brought together researchers and professionals from South, Central and North America in a single online event. The content of both volumes includes many of the first issues addressed by researchers, scholars, and practitioners across the Americas at the start of the pandemic – before vaccines, before knowledge of treatment and impact, before our worlds and daily lives were forever changed. Chapters in the first volume focus on the impacts of the pandemic in mental health, social and family dynamics, educational processes and the work of health professionals. Chapters in the second volume are dedicated to studies addressing the impacts of the pandemic in vulnerable populations; proposals of psychological interventions to deal with the distress caused by COVID-19; strategies of coping, resilience and adaptation; and the development of psychological instruments of measurement and assessments during the pandemic. The content of these two volumes marks a baseline for the collective work initiated by psychologists who came together to answer the call to combat the pandemic across the Americas. In that sense, both volumes are truly a “snapshot in time” that could help us assess in the future how much progress we have made to apply psychology to the pressing demands of our time.

This book is the first of two volumes that bring together the works presented at the congress "Contributions of Psychology to COVID-19", organized by the Interamerican Society of Psychology in 2020. This was one of the first virtual international meetings on psychology and COVID-19 in the world and brought together researchers and professionals from South, Central and North America in a single online event. The content of both volumes includes many of the first issues addressed by researchers, scholars, and practitioners across the Americas at the start of the pandemic – before vaccines, before knowledge of treatment and impact, before our worlds and daily lives were forever changed. Chapters in the first volume focus on the impacts of the pandemic in mental health, social and family dynamics, educational processes and the work of health professionals. Chapters in the second volume are dedicated to studies addressing the impacts of the pandemic in vulnerable populations; proposals of psychological interventions to deal with the distress caused by COVID-19; strategies of coping, resilience and adaptation; and the development of psychological instruments of measurement and assessments during the pandemic. The content of these two volumes marks a baseline for the collective work initiated by psychologists who came together to answer the call to combat the pandemic across the Americas. In that sense, both volumes are truly a “snapshot in time” that could help us assess in the future how much progress we have made to apply psychology to the pressing demands of our time.

In the Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19 series, international experts introduce important themes in psychological science that engage with people’s unprecedented experience of the pandemic, drawing together chapters as they originally appeared before COVID-19 descended on the world. This book explores how COVID-19 has impacted society, and chapters examine a range of societal issues including leadership and politics, community, social status, welfare, social exclusion and accountability. Addressing the social and psychological processes that structure, and are structured by, our social contexts, it shows not only how groups and individuals can come together to manage global crises, but also how these crises can expose weaknesses in our society. The volume also reflects on how we can work together to rebuild society in the aftermath of the pandemic, by cultivating a shared sense of responsibility through social integration and responsible leadership. Showcasing theory and research on key topics germane to the global pandemic, the Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19 series offers thought-provoking reading for professionals, students, academics and policy makers concerned with the psychological consequences of COVID-19 for individuals, families and society.

The Making of a Pandemic provides a systematic account of how societal and psychological forces shaped the Covid-19 pandemic. The first part focuses on how biological and societal factors interact to create a pandemic. The second part explores how characteristics of the American economy, the American approach to public health, and domestic and international inequality combined to prolong the pandemic, hamper mitigation efforts, and arouse opposition to cooperation with public health measures. The third part examines the psychological processes that led to resistance to efforts to mitigate the pandemic and linked the resistance to right-wing ideologies. The book concludes by looking at the limits of the technical and medical reforms others have proposed to protect us from repetitions of the Covid-19 disaster and by calling for a “deep confrontation” with the societal and psychological factors that created and shaped the pandemic.

With specially commissioned introductions from international experts, the Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19 series draws together previously published chapters on key themes in psychological science that engage with people’s unprecedented experience of the pandemic. This volume collects chapters that address prominent issues and challenges presented by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to families, parents, and children. A new introduction from Marc H. Bornstein reviews how disasters are known to impact families, parents, and children and explores traditional and novel responsibilities of parents and their effects on child growth and development. It examines parenting at this time, detailing consequences for home life and economies that the pandemic has triggered; considers child discipline and abuse during the pandemic; and makes recommendations that will support families in terms of multilevel interventions at family, community, and national and international levels. The selected chapters elucidate key themes including children’s worry, stress and parenting, positive parenting programs, barriers which constrain population-level impact of prevention programs, and the importance of culturally adapting evidence-based family intervention programs. Featuring theory and research on key topics germane to the global pandemic, the Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19 series offers thought-provoking reading for professionals, students, academics, policy makers, and parents concerned with the psychological consequences of COVID-19 for individuals, families, and society.

How do we begin to cope with loss that cannot be resolved? The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us haunted by feelings of anxiety, despair, and even anger. In this book, pioneering therapist Pauline Boss identifies these vague feelings of distress as caused by ambiguous loss, losses that remain unclear and hard to pin down, and thus have no closure. Collectively the world is grieving as the pandemic continues to change our everyday lives. With a loss of trust in the world as a safe place, a loss of certainty about health care, education, employment, lingering anxieties plague many of us, even as parts of the world are opening back up again. Yet after so much loss, our search must be for a sense of meaning, and not something as elusive and impossible as "closure." This book provides many strategies for coping: encouraging us to increase our tolerance of ambiguity and acknowledging our resilience as we express a normal grief, and still look to the future with hope and possibility.